When Home is... not so secret

Have you ever reflected on your life thus far and not been surprised, as though there was a predestined plan you have actually known all along?

I know there are many times in life when you don’t want to be where you’re at – whether it’s your physical or emotional home – but there are other moments in life when everything just seems to fall into place; when you feel content and know that everything is as it should be.

I’ve been thinking about those moments a lot over the rainy long-weekend after reading a particularly insightful and eloquent post from author Rebecca Woolf on her blog Girl's Gone Child.

Rebecca began her blog in 2005 after the birth of her first child, Archer. Hers has been quite a journey to find home: falling pregnant and marrying her partner after only knowing each other for a matter of months meant adjusting to marriage and motherhood at the same time. There were many ups and downs, which she chronicles with humour, wisdom and insightfulness, before the birth of their second child, a daughter Fable.

Now she is pregnant with twin girls. A place she could hardly have imagined to be seven years ago. Or could she?

“...suddenly everything felt so completely right. Like overhearing a secret you already kind of knew, heard somewhere before.”

Have you ever ‘overheard a secret you already kind of knew’? While I have never thought of these moments in this way before, it expresses so perfectly such life changing moments you know deep down you’re meant to make.

There have been three such moments for me:

I was only 19 when I met Stuart. I know, ridiculously young, but anyway. We became friends first and while I didn’t know where our friendship would lead I had the strongest feeling that he would always be in my life. Not necessarily my life but somewhere on the periphery, always. It was the oddest sensation, one I have never had since, at a time when university friendships and flirtations came and went regularly.

Years later when we came to inspect this house, it felt like ours from the moment I walked inside. Even though, on paper, it wasn’t the house I was looking for. I was sure we had already found that house, around the corner.

Here I was, with the man who I thought would be an acquaintance forever, living in a house I loved but didn’t think I wanted, with a little girl and baby boy by my side. The two children I always imagined we would have living in a house the perfect size for the four of us.

The previous owners moved because they were having a third baby. Stuart laughed, ‘that will never be our problem’ he said to the real estate agent. So sure we were complete.

Then one day, a couple of years later I was driving along with Lily and Ned giggling in the backseat. A moment of contentment until a little voice in my head interrupted and spoke very loudly.

‘We’re not all here yet.’

Surely we were?

But those secrets you accidentally overhear do come true it seems. And when they do you truly know you’ve arrived home.



Click here to read more about Rebecca’s life at Girl's Gone Child.